Comrades jump on to 'Save Saddam' bandwagon

TNN|

Nov 08, 2006, 03.03 AM IST

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NEW DELHI: For the CPM, Tikrit and Trivandrum share more than just a slight alliterative resonance. Close on the heels of Prakash Karat asking the UPA government to condemn Saddam’s death sentence and urge the Iraqi government to revert the verdict, CPM’s Kairali TV has started a ‘Save Saddam’ campaign.

The rules of the game are similar to the umpteen polls conducted by various TV channels: Participants can e-mail or SMS which will then be broadcast. Kairali sources say they have already received around 18,000 e-mail and SMS, which will be passed on to world leaders. The respondents include ministers, MPs and cultural activists.

Saddam seems to have struck a chord in Kerala even without the prompting of the Left. Cutting across communities, highly-politicised Keralites today share a strong anti-American sentiment. This has even snowballed, given contemporary circumstances, to encompass a certain degree of tolerance towards Islamic extremism.

And though Saddam Hussein’s despotism extended to a ruthless extermination of any Islamic extremists in Iraq, he has been drafted into the grand struggle against American imperialism. And that’s why news of the death sentence blazed its way on to the front pages of Kerala’s top dailies.

“Death Sentence!” screamed one front-page the day the verdict came out, with a huge close-up of the former Iraqi dictator splashed across three-fourths of the page. The editorial of the day went on to slam the verdict. Almost all the other Malayalam dailies devoted entire editions to the development, with a huge majority calling the judgement a travesty of justice.

This trend certainly augurs well for the future of the Left in the state. The CPM’s overt posturing against the verdict “passed by American stooges” apart, there is a not-so-subtle electoral angle behind the “Save Saddam” move of its mouthpiece.

For the party that made massive inroads into the strongholds of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) in the recent assembly polls, this is the logical next step in its “reaching out” campaign. Muslims in Kerala, account for almost 25% of the population, have traditionally rallied around the IUML, the second biggest constituent in the Congress-led United Democratic Front Opposition in Kerala.

During the recent polls, the CPM had aggressively campaigned in Muslim-dominated Malappuram and Kozhikode districts with Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein being given a place in the party pantheon comprising EMS and AKG. It was also hinted that top state leader Paloli Mohammed Kutty would be the next chief minister should the Left come to power again.

And all this, in turn, was an extension of the symbolism deployed at the party state meet held in Malappuram earlier, where the venue was named “Yasser Arafat Nagar,” ostensibly to pay tribute to the Palestinian leader who had died during the run up to the meet.